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As recent droughts throughout Australia indicate, we can't survive without water. In fact, next to air, water is the most important need that their body has. Our body is made up of 70% water, and we require about two liters of clean fresh water every day.
Unfortunately, for many of us this need is simply not met. Instead of drinking water, we tend to drink tea, coffee, juices or soft drinks. Recent research is now showing this, is a major factor in many people’s health problems.
Many of us have a deranged sense of thirst and are suffering from chronic mild dehydration as Dr Batmanghelidj states in his book. "Your body's many cries for water" -- "it is now becoming obvious that because of gradually failing thirst sensation. Our body becomes chronically and increasingly dehydrated, from early adult age. With increasing age the water content of the cells of the body decreases, to the point that the ratio of the volume of body water that is inside themselves to that which is outside the cells changes from a figure of 1.1 and becomes almost 0.8. This is a very drastic change." and we are only just beginning to understand the severity of the problem.
The human body has various mechanisms built in to protect the most vital organs whenever the supply of water is restricted. Over time the cells in some areas change aspects of their structure and function. These changes will not reverse with the temporary reversal of the amount of available water. The body will only reverse these changes gradually, when it has been in a state of adequate water supply for a prolonged period. Put simply, a couple of day’s adequate water intake will not change years of the inadequate water intake. The point about what we are finding is that other fluids should not replace our 2 liters of water a day. Especially not tea, coffee and carbonated soft drinks, each of these and many herbal drinks are actually diuretics. This means that they cause you to you to urinate more then you drink. So if you have 1 cup of coffee. You might actually lose 1.25 cups of fluid, and therefore become dehydrated. One of the first things that change under dehydration is that there is an increase in histamines. For many these are involved in allergies, and arthritic problems. Also, the mucus coating on the stomach is affected and gastric pain, indigestion or heartburn is a common result. Dehydration has been a factor in some people's asthma, circulatory disease, blood pressure problems, headaches, poor memory and depression. So before going on to any treatments a re-hydration program could be tried.
This is what we recommend, two to three glasses of water when you first get up, a glass of water, half an hour before meals and a glass before bed at night. Try this for at least two months and see how you go. |
